“I was shocked, horrified that we can allow something like that to happen,” Yeoh told Yahoo Movies UK.

“You’re talking about things that he said in the archives. If he had said it yesterday, or today, or something like this then you can make a big fuss but why dig up something now?

“I don’t understand at all. It’s so unnecessary, what good does it do?”

The tweets in question were dug up and shared by alt-right commentators who led an online backlash against Gunn, urging Disney to stop him from making any more Guardians films.

Michelle appeared as Aleta Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Despite the fact that the director had acknowledged the tweets in interviews years earlier, and apologised for their inappropriate content, the studio still decided to cut ties.

‘The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values and we have severed our business relationship with him,” said the Disney statement issued at the time and since then the studio has put production on the third film on ‘indefinite hold’.